Just because there are no downsides to screaming you carefully considered, morally pure opinions doesn’t make them any less valid. Actually, I’d think the opposite: someone who’s dependent on getting a job at Facebook is far more likely to be be disingenuous in their criticism of the company than someone who has no reason to filter their views.
No, not at all. Don’t get me wrong, I myself would not work at Facebook because of my _own_ morals. But I draw a line between what I believe in and how I project those beliefs onto others.
If there’s a thing I’ve learned in life is that reality is extremely nuanced and passing blanket judgements like the above is almost always bound to be wrong.
I appreciate your considered and nuanced reply to my fairly stark comment. My position on Facebook is that it is so awful an entity that it is not moral to work in any position in the company. And I don't buy the excuse of working for an immoral company (if you recognise it as such) because you need the money. But I recognise this is a fairly absolutist position.
Yes, there are many bad things one could say about Facebook but I think the relevant sentiment here is "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." How many employers are there that are above any kind of criticism? In most employment searches, hiring teams will be interested in how you worked as part of a team, not in pessimistic interpretations of your employer's ethics.
They can say whatever they like about their employer. I can’t even begin to imagine the mentality of admonishing a stranger on the internet because you think they said something that Facebook doesn’t like. It’s fine I promise.
I hear this often, but honestly even with a low pay people don't leave their job unless they at their core disagree fundamentally with the ethics of the company, and I don't know many people at FB who disagree fundamentally with the company. Sure there are people who are not happy with some of the decisions the company take, and they argue openly or challenge management about that, but a company can't make everyone happy and I'm happy that they at least give us transparency and the opportunity to express ourselves and challenge them when we don't agree. In other companies you would probably get kicked out if you didn't show open support in whatever decision they take, and worse if you start talking politics.
is it just me or would it be very hard to work at Facebook these days without constantly experiencing cognitive dissonance day in and day out?
feels like the only way to enjoy working there is to either be someone who only cares about the money and prestige and/or convince yourself that the criticisms against Facebook are invalid
Note I said: “based on whether they are individually comfortable with every aspect of the organisation’s impact on the world.”
I’m sure Facebook employees are talented and have options for employment, but even they are unlikely to find an employer perfectly aligned with their own moral compass.
There’s no question that there are good things about Facebook, but I think a fully contemplative person would need to balance those things against the harms Facebook allows to exist on their platform. It’s not a black and white question of good vs evil, as much as it is “does what this company does (or not do), on balance, comport with my values of right or wrong?” Evidence of wrong-doing and questionable judgment by the company’s leaders is abundant. And at some point you can’t continue to work for a company without being complicit in its sins; after all, a company hires someone because they need them to help execute the company’s decisions.
I'm not defending anyone working at Facebook and, on the whole, I think Facebook is extremely problematic. I personally decline semi-annual offers from their recruiters. I'm just saying that it's too easy for outsiders to pass judgement when they know nothing about individual situations and circumstances. To their credit, despite whatever friction they may receive from on high, Facebook does have employees who care about and are working to address contentious issues.
Also, people greatly overestimate how easy it is for others to actually find new jobs. Yes, there are lots of high paying tech jobs available (I have no idea how the Covid-19 pandemic may have changed things) but some people -- for a variety of reasons: health, family and otherwise -- have great difficulty doing this. Hiring is known to be broken and is the cause of _great_ anxiety for some number of us for these reasons. (It's so problematic for me that I don't even bother, at a great cost.)
This is not the argument to which I responded. If you want to argue that many jobs at FB are perfectly ethical, make that argument. If you want to argue that _every_ job at FB is ethical, make that argument.
If you want to argue that it is hard to quit FB because of money and schools, and that that changes the ethics, see my comment above.
I don't think it's fair to discuss any perceived moral problem around this. Facebook pays well and you get to work with some very smart people on a far-reaching product. That's a good job.
Beating people up for not having your morals is not a great way to get them on your side.
Facebook has been on my list of companies not to work at for a long time, but I have friends who work there. Accepting that other people value different things and being willing to interact with them on a basic, human level is a lot more likely to build bridges and lead to constructive conversation about important matters down the road than casting people aside because they don't conform to your worldview today.
I'll grant you that Facebook, among others, enables exactly the sort of thing I'm advocating against. I'll grant you that it seems to promote people yelling at each other over the internet instead of building the relationships that enable difficult conversations in time. And I'll grant you that they do it to sell ads for shit we mostly don't need.
But that doesn't make everybody who works there bad, and it doesn't mean that people who decide that continuing to work there is no longer consistent with their values should be equated with merchants of death when they publicly leave.
You're castigating somebody for voting with their feet, but presumably mostly because they didn't do it as soon as you did.
Wow. So do you have a list of objective criteria you use to decide which list of companies is morally acceptable for your candidates to have worked at, or are you just coming up with an arbitrary list based on your emotions and limited personal experience? Isn’t this also incredibly hypocritical given that you admit to working at FB yourself in the past? Shouldn’t you technically fire yourself, or do you of course consider your circumstances an exception?
I very much doubt that most employees at Facebook share your viewpoint that Facebook is a net negative for society. It’s almost a tautology—people who feel that way won’t seek employment there.
Okay, lets say your facebook page is public and you rant about the company you work for. That, to me, indicates some incredibly poor judgement and it absolutely should come back to haunt you.
I want to point out there's a big difference between judging people without nuance and what the parent post says. To me it seems you read a lot in between the lines on the post above which I didn't get nearly the same reading on. I took it simply as "I see Facebook on a resume, it's not a full positive for me like many may see it in the tech world" and would be a possible ethical red flag.
I feel the same at a personal level and Facebook is far from the only company on my mental list there, but with any of these it is not a categorical judgement or an immediate eliminator of someone in any situation.
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